One Has Forgotten
by Iridescent Individual
Summary: The BAU is the world's greatest extraction team. No Inception characters. Adapted from "The Uncanny Valley".


**A/N: The BAU are the world's greatest extraction team. No Inception characters feature in this, only the concept is used.**** The story is adapted (heavily altered, obviously) from the Season Five episode "The Uncanny Valley".**

* * *

_All the things one has forgotten scream for help in dreams. -Elias Canetti_

"Jennifer Jareau," she greets him with a smile. "What can I do for you?"

"This is how I get in touch with them, isn't it?" he asks, dropping his voice, an unnecessary precaution in the crowded bar. She is almost annoyed by it, as it forces her to lean closer to pick up everything he is saying.

"With who?" she furrows her eyebrows, presenting her best dumb blonde expression. It has always been sufficient to dissuade the merely curious. Anyone who actually needs them will know to continue to press.

"The BAU. I need to speak to you first, don't I." His voice is still lowered, but it is authoritative. It is no longer a question. He means business.

"Depends on what you need." The façade is instantly dropped, as she offers him a coy smile.

"I need someone to perform an extraction, of sorts, and I've heard that you're the best." Emboldened by his success, he is no longer hissing under his breath, but the thumping bass, clinking glasses and chattering crowd are more than enough to shield their conversation from eavesdroppers.

"I'll need details," she tells him, standing up. "Perhaps somewhere quieter?"

"I know a diner that will be perfect," he tells her, and she flashes him a smile.

"Lead the way, Dr. Malcolm," JJ tells him, and he doesn't think to question how she knows his name until much later.

* * *

"This has to be discreet, you understand," he says as soon as they're sitting down. It's a twenty-four hour diner, and is nearly dead at this hour of the night. A bored waitress drifts across the room to get them what is sure to be mediocre coffee as JJ settles herself in the plastic booth.

"Dream work generally is," she tells him, patient but not patronizing. "The mark will never know it happened."

"Or anyone else, you understand," he blusters. "Things you might see…"

"Dr. Malcolm, we have no intention of using any information we may find against you," she offers him a bland smile. "It would not lend itself to our reputation if we regularly turned on our clients.

"Of course not," he shakes his head. "I didn't mean to imply that you might be disreputable-"

"What we do is illegal, Dr. Malcolm," she reminds him. "It is perfectly natural for you to be somewhat distrusting, but I can assure you we are very professional and have not gained our status by failing to complete our jobs. If we destroyed the lives of our employers, they would hardly be spreading the word of our effectiveness."

"Of course." He is still nervous, she notes, but comforted by her sound logic. This is JJ's job, to feel out the employer, get the information, and decide what jobs make it to the team. She wouldn't be doing it if she wasn't good at it. But being the frontman (well, woman) came at a price—being the only team member in the public eye meant she would never enter a dream again, even if she'd had some training. If she didn't commit the crime, she couldn't be arrested, despite the fact every law enforcement official within two hundred miles knew her name.

"I need you to go into a woman's mind and make sure she doesn't have some information," he is still tentative. "Just…go in and tell me what you see."

"The woman's name?" she is taking down notes on a pad. Most of the time, she doesn't write down the majority of the conversation, but she finds it adds a degree of professionalism if she appears to be carefully noting down the job, and it helps them to feel that the scrutiny is off them.

"Samantha Malcolm." He is staring at the fake wood grain of the table as he says it, unwilling to make eye contact. She writes down the name, notes his hesitation. The shared last name doesn't faze her. It isn't as unusual as people think for their clients to be turning on their own family.

"And the information we'd be looking for?" Not that she'd be doing the looking, but the pronoun gave them the impression they were talking to an entire organization as opposed to a single woman.

"I can't tell you that." He does meet her eyes this time, but only for a second.

"That is highly unusual, Dr. Malcolm." She is far more surprised by this than by the mark's name. "It is rather difficult to look for information when we have no idea what we're looking for."

"I don't need precise information," he argues. "I just need to know what you see."

"I can't be sure if we can take this case," she warns, standing up. The waitress is only now returning with the coffee, but one glance at it determines that it isn't worth drinking. Instead, she lays a five on the table and pushes her chair in. "I'll be in contact within the week."

He starts to dig in his pocket. "Here, I have a card somewhere-" but she cuts him off.

"We will be able to contact you should we decide to take the case, Dr. Malcolm."

"Of course," he takes it in stride, sipping at the newly delivered coffee. He winces—it is both weak and lukewarm—and JJ's decision to abandon the cup has been reinforced. She has been in enough greasy-spoon cafes and tacky eateries to know when it is better to waste a few dollars than to attempt to stomach the brown sludge they are passing off as a drink.

The doctor sets down his cup and looks up again to see that Jennifer Jareau is gone, leaving the door swinging in her wake.

* * *

"That's weird, it's like there's something he doesn't want us to know," Reid muses, pushing back the swivel chair and spinning it around.

"There's always something they don't want us to know," Morgan points out. "If it's there, we'll find it anyway." He taps at the table, keeping his eyes on Hotch even as JJ speaks. Their team leader is always the one to watch; whether or not they help the client will ultimately be his decision.

"The proposed mark is Samantha Malcolm," JJ informs them, pulling it up on the screen in front of them. "She is the client's daughter. Her medical records indicate increasing instability, both mentally and emotionally, since her mother's death. She was treated with electroshock therapy as a child, but it didn't appear to have helped. She has recently recovered enough to be living in a halfway house. Her father wants us to go into her mind and tell us what we find."

"That's the problem," Reid goes back to his earlier point, setting down the file that he's already read. "We have no idea what we're looking for. We could be helping a murderer, for all we know."

"Maybe he could, uh, just want to see how much she's actually recovered?" Garcia suggests, glancing up. "You know, checking in on her because he's not sure of any other way to be sure?" Emily looks at her with an expression akin to pity. Even after years in the dream business, teeming with the disreputable and the miserable, and prying into the deepest secrets of others, she still wants to see the best in people. Emily doesn't know whether to sigh at her naiveté or envy her faith.

JJ shakes her head. "He was definitely looking for information, but he refused to specify what."

"We'll take the case," Hotch stands up, and the rest turn to look at him.

"Are you sure?" Emily asks, looking up from the file. "It seems pretty fishy to me."

"Possibly," Hotch acknowledges, "But it's a low-risk job, and the pay is good." He turned to JJ. "Arrange a meeting."

"Right away," JJ agrees. "I'll ask him to come prepared to give us more information. Morgan can get started looking into anything that might cause a problem."

"What if he's trying to cover something up?" Emily backs Reid's earlier point. "Why should we help him?"

"If he is, and she knows anything, then we'll know too," Hotch reminds them. "Then we'll be in a position to help."

* * *

Dr. Malcolm hesitantly enters the warehouse ahead of JJ, squinting in the dim light. She shuts the door behind them and flicks on a light switch, illuminating a dusty room. A ring of folding chairs are set up in the middle of it, but no equipment is left around and nothing appears to be permanent.

"You understand this isn't our primary base," she explains. "We can't risk bringing clients to our office if we expect to stay under the radar. But I assure you, this location is equally discrete."

"Yes, I understand," he mumbles, looking up and around. The team had were already seated, looking at him, but they stood up as he entered, and JJ melted into the shadows.

"Hello," one of the men greets him, offering a hand. He hesitantly shakes it. "I'm Aaron Hotchner, and I'm the Extractor." He nods towards a black man standing to his right. "Our Point Man, Derek Morgan," the man raises a hand in greeting. "Our Forger, Emily Prentiss," the dark-haired woman tips her head to the side and smiled. "Our Chemist, Penelope Garcia," and the blond waves enthusiastically from her perch to the side, "And our Architect, Dr. Spencer Reid," he gestures at the young man in the corner.

"I'm sure we'll be able to help you," he tells the psychiatrist. "Why don't you have a seat."


End file.
